A Dark Tale
by Morwen Elda
Summary: Tom Riddle was born in the orphanage and has never known family. Follow his story as this young boy transforms from a child into the man known as Lord Voldemort.
1. Merope's Baby

_I decided to tell the tale of Lord Voldemort through his own eyes. This story will detail his life from birth to death. My intention with this story is to try to bring everyone into the mind of Tom Morvolo Riddle, and allow you to look upon the world through his eyes for a change._

_ Disclaimer: I of course do not own Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, or any other characters from the series. I own copies of the books and movies but that's about it._

* * *

For years she watched him. Tom Riddle; tall, hansom, rich. He was everything a girl could ever dream for. The radiant mansion he lived in was just over the hill, hidden by the thicket that surrounded her house. She would spend hours working outside in hopes that she would see him pass by.

It pained her, every time she saw him with another woman. They were refined women, not like her. They always wore new clothes, they had servants to cook and clean for them. But in her own home, Merope was the servant. Her family had squandered their fortune over the generations until all that remained were their two prized heirlooms, and the rickety shack outside of Little Hangleton.

Merope knew that she should have been a refined woman, one who wore extravagant robes, who would call a house-elf to do all her bidding. She was a pureblood, and those were the rights that afforded her. Her father was a constant reminder that was practically royalty among fellow wizards. No, the only thing that identified Merope Gaunt as something remarkable was the heavy gold locket that had hung around her neck for many years.

She knew that it was beneath her to lust after a muggle. Her brother taunted her endlessly. He would sneak into town and cast hexes on the young Riddle man. It pained her to watch it, but she held her tongue. Her father yelled at her enough as it was, constantly pointing out the weak quality of her spells, reminding her that she was very nearly a squib, that she was lucky he even allowed her to touch Slytherin's locket. But Merope thought her brother's antics were tolerable, as long as Morfin never told their father.

One day a man from the Ministry for Magic came to talk to her brother about attacking the muggles in the village, more specifically for an attack on Tom Riddle. She tried to busy herself with making lunch, trying to tune out the sound of her father yelling at the man who introduced himself as Ogden. Ogden had tried to stand up for her when she had dropped a pot in her nerves. She was sure he didn't realize he was only making her situation worse. Despite her fear of what was to come, she pressed her back against the wall beside the window and listened to the conversation.

The man didn't seem to care about their status as purebloods, that of course enraged her father. She could remember clearly how the fear had welled up inside her as her father drug her across the room by the chain on the locket around her neck, and how she was relieved to be released, wanting nothing more than to get away from her father and brother.

Suddenly there was a clopping, jangling sound coming in through the window. Merope felt her stomach turn cold and drop to her knees. She stood, momentarily paralyzed by fear before lifting her head. There was a burning in the corner of her eyes, he was with another woman, she could hear the voice talking about their hovel of a home. But Merope bit back her tears, desperate to keep her father from suspecting anything.

Morfin must have been in a bad mood. As Merope allowed herself to breath while the horses hooves became more and more faint, she heard her brother hiss something that caused her heart to stop.

"'_Darling'_," he had hissed at her, "_'darling', he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway_."

She prayed her father hadn't heard, but Merope never had such luck.

"_She likes looking at that muggle_," Morfin continued, "_Always in the garden when he passes, peering though the hedge at him_."

She burned with fear and anger. She thought she had kept her actions hidden.

Her father had closed his hands around her throat before she knew it, she knew her eyes were pleading for Ogden to help her, and he obliged, only to be chased from the property by her brother.

Her father strangled her, choked her, slapped her. She fell to the ground and he tortured her with the Cruciatus curse. It felt like hours before the ministry returned to save her. She knew her father loved her, that he wanted what was best for her.

With her father and brother gone, both imprisoned in Azkaban and out of the way, she felt free for the first time in her life. Her magic seemed to flow more easily, fear no longer had a constant grip on her.

Merope spent weeks trying to wave to Riddle, to talk to him. It still broke her heart that he didn't seem inclined to return her heartfelt affection, but he was genial. Once she told him Marvolo and Morfin were gone, he was even inclined to stop for brief chats on cool afternoons.

At long last Merope could deal no longer. She knew that she couldn't live without him, she had to do something. She brewed the strongest love potion she was able, weary that if something went wrong he might end up hurt. It was on a hot summer afternoon that he rode by her house again. She tried to strike up a conversation, but he insisted that he was in a hurry.

"At least have a drink before you go," she insisted. "It's such a hot day, and you look a bit peaked."

Tom smiled and nodded. Merope bounded off toward the house, still not trusting that he wouldn't leave while she went to fetch him some water. When she returned, the love potion had already been added, and she handed the glass over to him with a small curtsy.

She took a few moments to appreciate his form as he drained the glass of water. It took a moment to take effect, and then he turned to her.

"Why don't you come with me for a ride?"

"Really?"

"Yes."

Joy welled up inside her as she jumped up into the seat beside him.

Over the next few months Merope found herself happier than she had ever been in her life. Tom had insisted on having a wedding the very day she jumped into the carriage. She continued to add a drop of love potion here and there to his drinks.

When she realized that she was pregnant, she knew he really loved her too, after all they had been happily married for nearly a year. The love potion would no longer be needed. She would tell him about the baby and he would sweep her into his arms.

But the scene did not go at all how she had planned. He asked how she had gotten him to agree to the wedding, the consummation, any of it. And Merope had confessed that she was a witch. The disgusted look on her face had broken her heart, and he fled from the house without another word to her.

She had been left with nothing, she was pregnant, she needed to take care of her baby. She managed to make it for a while off of the food left in the house. Then she traveled to London where she made do begging for a while. Finally, desperation struck her. She was starving, her clothes were in tattered rags and the cold broke through making her spend endless nights shivering in the alleys she slept in.

Merope made her way to Borgin and Burke's to sell the only thing of value she had ever possessed. Her believe that she couldn't live without Tom was proving true, she knew she wouldn't live long after her child was born. She even knew that the locket was worth a great deal, but she just needed food and a coat. Burke was a stingy man, but Merope took the ten galleons he offered without complaint.

It was New Year's Eve when she made her way to an orphanage. Merope knocked on the door and collapsed into the arms of the woman who opened it. The labor pains were intense. The woman called Mrs. Cole gave her a bed to lay in, and tended to her. Merope was hardly able to speak, and drifted in and out of consciousness. She could hear Mrs. Cole going on, telling her she was having trouble breathing because of pneumonia.

The woman seemed to go on and on, but Merope couldn't care less what she had to say, until she announced that the baby was a boy.

"I hope he looks like his father," she murmured softly.

"What would you like to name him?"

"Tom. Tom was his father's name. Marvolo was mine. Tom Marvolo Riddle."

Mrs. Cole took the baby away to clean him up and wrap him in a towel. Merope lay in the bed, gasping for air and shaking with cold. She knew that a simple spell could save her, but it was magic that had driven Tom away from her, she swore when he left she would never use magic again, she had even snapped her own wand and thrown it into some bushes.

Merope closed her eyes, forming within her mind a picture of Tom Riddle, of herself, and of her son; the family they could have been. She let out a last shuddering breath and was gone.

When Mrs. Cole retuned she found the girl dead. It wasn't a surprise really. She had come to an orphanage to give birth, she was clearly poor, starving, and sick. Nevertheless, her heart ached for the child in her arms, the child who would never know a mother's touch.

* * *

_I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please leave reviews if you read it. I find it very hard to keep motivated to write and update with any sort of frequency unless I know that people are enjoying the story. Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome._


	2. Awakening

**Chapter Two: Awakening**

Tom sat down on his bed and took several deep breaths. For five years he had been trapped in this place, and he was becoming steadily more annoyed with it. He couldn't wait until he was older, at least then he would have his own room; at least then he would have some peace.

He closed his eyes for a moment trying to block out the sound of the other children who shared his room. It was late and they had been forced to leave the other parts of the orphanage and get ready for bed. During the day Tom could usually find somewhere to be alone, but today several would-be parents had arrived to meet the children.

Those days were the worst. They would make everyone put on their cleanest clothes, and then cram them all into the same small room to interact with the prospective adopters. Having to spend the entire day in close proximity to the obnoxious children he lived with always put him in a bad mood, and now Tom wanted nothing more than to relax and read his book.

He leaned over the edge of his bed and groped underneath it. It took only seconds for him to know that someone had once again been touching things. The book wasn't strictly his, but he was the one who had borrowed it from the orphanage library, he was the only one who had rights to touch it at the moment.

"Looking for something, Tom?"

He didn't have to look up to know that it was Andrew Whitehead. At ten years old he was the bully of their dorm, as far as he was concerned, everything in the room belonged to him. Tom knew this routine, Andrew did it with all the kids, especially the younger ones.

"Give me my book, Andrew." His voice was calm but he knew that his anger was bubbling just beneath the surface.

"Why should I? It's not yours anyways, maybe I want to read it."

Tom didn't rise to the bait. He would have dearly loved to point out Andrew couldn't read, but he knew the older boy was only vying for control of what few excuses for possessions anyone had in this place.

Andrew flipped the book open to a random page, holding it in one hand and a glass of water in the other. _Just another part of his game._

"Give me my book." Again, his voice was calm, but it was somehow different now, it wasn't a simple statement, it wasn't the plea most children used with Andrew. Tom could almost feel a kind of power behind his words, and suddenly the dorm was silent.

Andrew stood there dumbfounded. Tom knew the commanding tone was one he had never heard before, and it scared the older boy. _This can work to my advantage,_ he thought.

Slowly, Tom lowered himself off the side of his bed, careful to keep each movement very deliberate. Since Andrew was five years older, he certainly didn't have size on his side, but he had fear, and he would use it.

He tried to embrace the feeling of power that he had felt when he last spoke, forcing himself to be certain it would be there again, rather than hoping. At last Tom looked the other boy in the eye. He kept his distance, not wanting to have to incline his head to do this, that would make Andrew feel superior.

"Now."

It was a simple word, but the reaction it invoked was more dramatic than Tom would have ever anticipated. Andrew dropped the book and bolted out the door, yelling for Mrs. Cole as he did.

Tom stepped forward and picked the book up off the ground, and he could feel every eye in the room on him as he did.

_Good_, he thought. _Let them fear me, that's just fewer battles I'll have to fight in the end._

He returned to his bed, propped up his pillow and turned back to the page he had left off on. For once the room was blissfully quiet, and for the first time in his life, Tom Riddle felt comfortable. 

* * *

He had expected Mrs. Cole to talk to him about the incident with Andrew, but she never did. Nor did she ask any of the other kids about it. They didn't seem to talk to each other about it though either.

Something had changed that night, and he knew it. The other kids from his dorm were quiet when he entered a room, they gave him a wide berth in the hallways, they never met his eye if they had to speak to him. It wasn't much, but at last Tom had some peace.

Over the next few weeks the novelty of it wore off, and reality came back to him. It was only the boys from his dorm that treated him with any respect now. There were still boys from the other dorm, the girls, and the older children.

The older girls weren't much of a problem. They would huddle and giggle, and tell each other how he was a cute little boy. He was polite to them in turn. He would help pick up their school books if they dropped them in the hall, he would let them use the water fountain first if they arrived at the same time.

Overall the girls were fond of him, but this created problems with the older boys. They wanted the attention, and instead they were giving it to little Tom. It wasn't long before their jealousy became apparent. It would have been nice, he reflected, if some of the boys from his dorm would have given them warning, but his incident with Andrew was still considered something of a taboo even nearly two months later.

The fact no one spoke of the incident didn't stop Andrew from trying to retaliate. He had been working his way into a group of the older boys, the ones who frequently skipped school, who would sneak out at every chance they got to cause trouble. Tom was too young for them to do anything dramatic, but they still found ways to torment him. Suddenly it seemed like every time he walked down the hall he tripped, or every time he got his tray at dinner it would be dumped into the floor.

Tom restrained himself. He closed his eyes to take a deep breath whenever this happened, determined to contain his anger, but after a week of this, he was in one of the worsts moods of his life. The orphanage was hardly a well funded organization, and with so many kids to take care of, spilled food meant getting very little to eat. Between Andrew's latest attempts to bully him and the nightmares of the children in the dorm, he also hadn't been getting much sleep.

That day Tom found his anger impossible to control, and when one of Andrew's older friends, Jack, "accidentally" nudged him at lunch, it came flowing out.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Jack muttered, dripping each word with insincerity.

Tom could feel his body shaking with rage, he hated showing he was upset, it seemed weak. He took his usual deep breath trying to steady himself, but instead heard Jack yell in surprise. He opened his eyes, confused, and looked around for what had caused Jack to start.

The metal tray on which the boy's lunch sat had shattered into several pieces, leaving Jack holding only a small sliver in each hand. He gaped at Tom in surprise before dropping the pieces and sprinting off.

Tom dumped his tray and left for the library. It was the place most likely to be quiet, and he needed to think. 

_What just happened? Did I do that?_

The idea that perhaps he had caused the tray to shatter was intoxicating. Jack was too surprised for it to have been his own doing, and the trays were too strong to do more than bend anyways. So just maybe...

Tom slipped into the library and grabbed a small vase on his way to a back table. The table was sectioned off, meant to give each person some amount of privacy, and the corner he chose, meant his was almost complete.

He steadied the vase on the table and sat down, staring intently at it. Tom wasn't really sure how to go about testing this, but it seemed as good a place to start as any. Hours went by, but nothing miraculous happened to the vase, and finally he was forced to make his way up to bed.

He returned to the library several times after that, but each time the vase would just sit there. His frustration was beginning to grow. It couldn't have been a coincidence with Andrew in the dorm. He felt the power of the words wrap around his tongue, it had been almost palpable in the air around him. Then Jack and the tray, that happened somehow...

"Aww look it, wittle Tom is amazed by a vase."

It seemed some of the older boys had found him, but Jack wasn't with the group. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and focusing on remaining calm. One of them flicked him in the back of the head._Breath_ he told himself.

Another flick, then another.

"Stop."

Again Tom felt power warping his mouth as he spoke, a sweet metallic tang lingering on his lips. He turned to see the boy with his hand outstretched, but unable to move it, as if it had just frozen in mid air.

"Don't let Tommy tell you what to do."

The group instantly began to poke, prod, and hit him. Rage boiled on the inside and as it reached it's zenith the vase on the table shattered into such fine pieces nothing was left but dust.

They gaped in surprise, some still gripping his shirt or arms raised to hit him. Tom closed his eyes once more, and this time he could feel it. Power. Raw. Power. It was swirling around him, through him, and breathing it was intoxicating.

"Leave," he said. His words were soft and clear, but immediately obeyed.

He felt his lips curl into a smile, relaxing as he felt energy still thick in the air. Tom focused his anger on another vase in the room and drew power from his surroundings, and was pleased to find it crumble to dust as well. Now he knew it was there, just waiting to be called upon, and anger was his key.

* * *

_Sorry this took so long to get up. I've been preparing for wrockstock and an upcoming dance performance of mine. I had originally intended to make this a longer chapter, but I decided to go ahead and get it up rather than making you wait any longer. So the next chapter will feature young Tom's first trip to the ocean, and we'll get to see what he does now that he knows he has power. Don't forget to leave me reviews, sometimes I forget about a story, then a new review pops up and I go "oh, shit, I gotta go work on that!"_


End file.
